A rambling, scatterbrained account of the life of doll addict DorrieBelle. She's got an overworked husband, an autistic son, a damaged ticker and just discovered she's a full fledged insulin-using diabetic and slightly anemic. She's also a tightwad who loves to sew doll clothes, and could talk the ear off a bartender. And she's got a heckuva temper ! Luckily, her 'Empress of the Universe' delusion helps to keep things in check. If you wanna know more, we pity you... but here it is !

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Tuesday, March 10, 2015

I did an Embroidery today !

Made up my mind, just today,
to embroider something cute to wear home Friday, after my surgery. I think it’ll
help my outlook, both before and after. Long after I’ve forgotten I even have
an implant, it’ll be a nice memory and a sweet souvenir, even if no one else
notices. Located a comfy t-shirt that’d be loose enough to camouflage if
wearing a bra proved too painful, but if the design totally went south, would
only cost a few bucks to replace. Found the embroidery design I wanted, paid
four bucks for it (20% discount, yay) watched the free Bernina program digital-stitch
it on my computer, printed out a worksheet for it, selected and wrote down the
thread colors, then second-guessed m’self and selected new ones, shuffled
sewing machines, chalk marked the shirt for placement, and downloaded the
pattern from my computer to Brody … then did my very best to avoid the whole
thing for the rest of the day.

Oh, I skirted around it – I couldn’t
completely ignore it, I paid money for the design ! But I kept finding m’self
busy with other, very important activities as each self-imposed deadline approached. There was too much clutter on
the Arena. The floor held too much grit, food scraps, and dust. Lunchtime ! It
had been years since I embroidered on knit fabrics – maybe I should read up on
the right way to do that, just in case. Oh, wait, this person is wrong about a
minor detail in this online article, I’d best let them know. Anything new on Pinterest or Etsy ? You know, the
usual.

But as evening approached –
thanks a lot, Daylight Savings Time ! (growlmuttergrumble) – I knew if I didn’t
get it done today, I wouldn’t do it at all, and the design didn’t have a lot of
appeal after Friday. Oh, I could come up with other uses for it, or I’d have
never shelled out real money for it, but it was getting close to now or never
time. Nothing is as inspiring as a rapidly approaching deadline. I took a deep
breath, dug through the stabilizers, hooped up the shirt, and figured I had at
least three patches to cover this up if I totally pooched it.

And it went beautifully. Only
took about 27 minutes (yes, I time ‘em for later reference) and the one thread
break I had wasn’t the holo-shimmer glittery
plastic stuff. It was the border beige, which had somehow gotten wrapped around
the thread pin when I was staring at the stitching. I had lots of trouble with
the holo-shimmer breaking on the Odyssey machine cover design, so this time, I
added a pencil to the jar, to help ease it off the spool. Worked much better.

This is a non-licensed ‘Doc
McStuffins’ design, according to EmbroideryPanda.com. All I wanted was a
bandage, but the heart was a nice touch. It stitches as a solid bandage, so I
can skip the heart part if I want to. Evidently, Doc’s band-aids have a pink or
red heart – you can't hardly find a bandage design without a heart on it, thanks to ole Doc - but I did mine in the silvery holo-shimmer thread to reflect my
new upcoming ‘high tech’ heart. It’s placed on the shirt to hit about where my incision
will be, perhaps a bit lower. Don’t worry, I’ll back it with some soft iron-on
interfacing made to cover the backsides of crafty clothes.

I’d just finished when
Beloved Hubby came home – and said we were going out for Chinese tonight !
Whoo-hoo ! It was heavenly. What a great day !